South Shore Freight's GP38-2S Are The

South Shore Freight’s GP38-2s are the backbone of one of America’s premier short lines by Kevin P. Keefe DIESELS UNDER WIRE DIESELS UNDER WIRE

Bearing the South Shore standard in traction orange and maroon, GP38-2s 2000 and 2004 roll a heavy westbound under energized catenary in Gary, Ind., on Nov. 13, 2015. Greg McDonnell Street running interurban style, GP38-2s Nos. 2009 and 2000 pull a westbound freight through the S-curve on 11th Street in Michigan City, Ind. “For a moment, this neighborhood belongs to a railroad called South Shore Freight.”

ven after 35 years, the scene still steel mills to heavy manufacturing. With its making facility at Burns Harbor, formerly gets your attention. You’re in the strategic 90-mile mainline arc tracing the Bethlehem Steel. old industrial town of Michigan southern rim of Lake Michigan from South There’s also that matter of South Shore’s City, Ind., standing along 11th Bend to Chicago, the South Shore inter- traction heritage. Nearly every move those Street, a quiet thoroughfare that sects nearly every major railroad in the U.S. diesels make must somehow accommodate cuts east-west through neighbor- the railroad’s original reason for being: the hoods of old frame houses and Heavy traffic 14,000-plus riders who every day rely on churches. Like an apparition from That location, and its correspondingly the South Shore Line commuter trains of the 1920s, a pair of rails gleams in heavy traffic, is what attracted Chicago- the Northern Indiana Commuter Transpor- the middle of the pavement, slung based, privately held Anacostia Rail Hold- tation District, with whom South Shore under a single strand of catenary wire. Any ings Co. (formerly Anacostia & Pacific) to shares most of its track. With 38 scheduled moment you might expect to see an arch- pay $27 million for the South Shore freight weekday passenger trains operating under Ewindowed interurban car go trundling past. operation in December 1989. The previous the South Shore Line brand, NICTD opera- Then you hear the almost stealthy ap- freight operator, Venango River Corp., was tions loom over everything, and the freight proach of a train. But what appears around mired in bankruptcy, and the trustee even- carrier is obligated to perform a daily dance the gentle S-curve is hardly a trolley. Head- tually found Anacostia to be an ideal suc- with its partner over matters ranging from light ablaze, a pair of bright-orange hood cessor. With acquisition of the South Shore, train operations to maintenance of way to units eases into the turns, trailing a long Anacostia transitioned from highly suc- spotting the diesels at the shop. skein of freight cars, sending vibrations up cessful consulting firm to major railroad The commuter agency owns most of the through the surrounding streetlights and operator. It has since fleshed out its hold- main line: 69 miles from South Bend to front porches. The diesels, two GP38-2s, are ings with companies such as New York & State Line. South Shore Freight ownership only doing 20 mph, but there’s no mistaking Atlantic, Pacific Harbor Line, and Louis- of track extends west from there to Kens- the authoritative rumble of their combined ville & Indiana. Altogether the Anacostia ington, 7 miles, along with Burnham Yard 4,000 hp as they pull through the turns. For lines haul more than 2 million carloads an- at Hegewisch, Lincoln Yard in Michigan a moment, this neighborhood belongs to a nually, over nearly 800 miles of track. City, numerous spurs and sidings, and the railroad called South Shore Freight. Those South Shore GP38-2s lug a sig- 21-mile former Nickel Plate Kingsbury The two diesels are more than just sim- nificant part of the holding company’s branch from Michigan City to Dillon, Ind., ple, run-of-the-mill Geeps. They are sym- overall business, especially in light of the south of La Porte, where local authorities bolic of one of the most durable fleets of lo- four major customers undergirding the are developing an industrial park. comotives in all of shortline railroading. railroad’s traffic base: coal for Northern In- For all these overlapping interests to Since they were built in 1981, the 10 diana Public Service Corp.’s generating work smoothly, the partnership with the GP38-2s of South Shore Freight have sol- plants at Bailly and Michigan City, and raw transportation district has to be good. And diered on for the same railroad, providing materials and finished products in and out from all accounts, it is. As South Shore reliable service to a heavy-duty roster of of U.S.S. Midwest Steel at Portage and the CEO Andrew Fox puts it, “We have an ex- customers, ranging from electric utilities to big Arcelor Mittal fully integrated steel- cellent working relationship. We’re co-de-

40 LOCOMOTIVE© 2017 Kalmbach | 2016 Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. www.TrainsMag.com Approaching the ramp to the NICTD passenger station and the 1956 line relocation that diverted CSS&SB tracks from the streets of East Chicago, Geeps work a westbound freight through Gary. pendents. It has to work that way.” The re- sult is a usually crisp operation in which commuter trains comfortably rub shoul- ders with South Shore’s freights. An interurban heritage With its roots in electric traction, the South Shore has a motive-power legacy that is distinct among contemporary short lines. In the steam era, the railroad went about its freight business with a classic lineup of electric motors. In an earlier iter- ation as the Chicago, Lake Shore & South Bend, a typical Midwestern interurban, the The overhead trolley wire glistens in the headlight glow as traction orange railroad relied on small Baldwin-Westing- South Shore Geeps 2001 and 2008 trudge through the snow on 10th Street with house 53- and 72-ton steeple-cabs to carry a westbound local on Jan. 5, 2010. Three photos, Greg McDonnell a modest less than carload trade. Everything changed in 1925 when Chi- Milwaukee and the Chicago, Aurora & El- which had dieselized Chicago terminal op- cago utilities magnate Samuel Insull ac- gin, all of which became standard bearers erations. They were the largest steeple-cabs quired the railroad and rechristened it the of the interurban era. ever built by Baldwin-Westinghouse. Chicago South Shore & South Bend The Insull empire sank into insolvency With a surge in postwar freight traffic, (pointedly with no comma after “Chica- by 1932, but not before investing millions of South Shore needed ever-larger motors, go”). A former associate of Thomas Edi- dollars in its railroads. It was Insull who and in 1949 came a breakthrough: acquisi- son, the British-born Insull was the prime transformed CSS&SB from sleepy interur- tion of a trio of 273-ton, double-ended, mover behind Chicago’s gigantic Com- ban to heavy-duty electric railroad, and streamlined 2-D+D-2 electrics. These were monwealth Edison electric utility, as well traffic grew in response throughout the the famed 800-class “Little Joes,” so nick- as Northern Indiana Public Service Co. 1920s and into the 1940s. To meet the de- named because they became available across the state line. Around the utilities, mand, South Shore traded up to increasing- when General Electric’s sale of 20 of the Insull consolidated a number of railroad ly larger electric motors, culminating in units to the Stalin-era Soviet Union was properties, which in addition to the South 1941 with a quartet of 97-ton electrics pur- nixed by the State Department. Purchased Shore included Chicago, North Shore & chased secondhand from Illinois Central, at a bargain price, the intrepid forces in the

www.TrainsMag.com | LOCOMOTIVE 41 Having worked an empty coal train from Michigan City to the East Chicago interchange with B&OCT, Nos. 706 and 707 stop to switch at Burnham Yard on their return east on a pleasant day in November 1975. Lou Gerard

Michigan City shops modified the units for use on South Shore’s 1,500-volt D.C. system Millenium Station and the Little Joes were off and running. CHICAGO Twelve more Little Joes created a separate WHERE EMDs WORK legend on Milwaukee Road’s Montana and McCormick Place Idaho electrification, five went to Brazil. CN (CSS) UNDER WIRE – AND BEYOND With a continuous horsepower rating of 5,120 and a continuous tractive effort of 77,000 pounds, the Little Joes were able to Hyde Park (57th St.) easily handle the South Shore’s growing fast- Clearing Yard MICHIGAN freight business. But by the mid-1950s, even BRC (CSS) L more power was required. Reinforcements A NS K NIPSCO Michigan City came in the form of 10 ex-New York Cen- E CN (CSS) Generating Station Carroll Ave. tral R-2 electrics rendered surplus by the BRC (CSS) Commercial AMTK (CSS&SB offices and shops) M CSS UP Avenue I elimination of electrification at Cleveland Hudson Lake C NIPSCO Bailly CSS South Bend Union Terminal. Built by Alco and GE in H Michigan I Generating Station City Airport 1931, the 140-ton ex-NYC units offered G CSS A South 3,000 hp and 66,600 pounds of tractive ef- Arcelor Bend CN

NS (CSS) NS N IHB Kensington Mittel mill Bendix Beverly Shores NS fort; seven of the motors were extensively Hegewisch CSS NS CSS Midwest rebuilt at Michigan City. In multiple-unit CN CSS Chicago South Shore & South Bend Steel mill Dune Park CSS electrified lines Hammond INDIANA use, the big-windowed R-2s partnered with CSS trackage rights the 800s to help spur dramatic growth in CSX Burns La Porte Other lines (CSS) East Chicago South Shore freight revenues. Gary/Chicago AirportGary Metro Center CSS Harbor NS Abandoned Miller CSX IHB Goffs NS BRC Belt Railway of Chicago South Shore purchased a hand-me- ILLINOIS NS NS CSX Portage/ CSS CN Canadian National down Buffalo Creek SW1 in 1956, but its CSX CSX CSX Transportation N CN experience with diesels began in earnest in Ogden Dunes CN IHB Indiana Harbor Belt the 1960s, coincident with the railroad’s NS Norfolk Southern Stillwell Not all lines shown 1967 sale to Chesapeake & Ohio. Some of 0 Scale 10 miles Kingsbury © 2016 Kalmbach Publishing Co., LOCOMOTIVE: Rick Johnson 42 LOCOMOTIVE | 2016 CN NS this was related to the growing business in unit coal trains, which were pushing the fleet of electric motors to its limit. A bigger factor was what became South Shore’s prime customer: the sprawling Bethlehem Steel rolling mill at Burns Har- bor, east of Gary, which opened for busi- ness in 1965 (and today is part of Luxem- bourg-based steel giant Arcelor Mittal). Bethlehem wasn’t interested in stringing catenary across the vast network of yard tracks serving the mill. With that, South Shore knew it had no choice but to turn away from electric freight. C&O transferred three TR3B cow-and- calf switchers and a pair of NW2s to the The brakeman hustles as former NYC Class R-2 motors Nos. 705 and 707 switch South Shore. Bigger power arrived in 1971 at Burnham Yard in the far South Side Chicago neighborhood of Hegewisch on in the form of eight C&O GP7s, designated a blustery February 1976 day. Lou Gerard Nos. 1501-1508. The numbering scheme was idiosyncratic: units with short hoods low, with dark-blue trim and lettering. 29-year career at Elgin, Joliet & Eastern and facing west took even numbers, units with The GP38-2s were apparently everything successor Canadian National. He’d actually short hoods facing east took odd. South South Shore was looking for, enabling the retired from CN, as general foreman at the Shore did it to help integrate the locomo- railroad to get rid of the 800-series electric old Illinois Central shops at Woodcrest, but tives with the passenger trains, all operated motors and the earlier GP7s. Fortunately, was ultimately drawn back to railroading, by the same company. two of the three Little Joes found homes: first in a short stint at the Gary Railway, The new Geeps were painted in C&O’s No. 802 at the Lake Shore Railway Museum which serves local steel mills, and thereafter familiar dark blue with yellow stripes, with in North East, Pa. (just 11 miles east of its at South Shore. a South Shore logo along the flanks of the Erie birthplace), and No. 803 preserved in Kehe was born in hoods. A few years later the railroad picked operating condition at the Illinois Railway the Chicago suburb up three more GP7s, this time from Florida Museum in Union, Ill. of Berwyn and grew East Coast. These units were not repainted; In the years since, the GP38-2s have up in Berkeley on the the FEC logo was merely removed from the done their job, remaining relatively un- southwest side, not hood. They also kept their original num- changed since their 1981 arrival, the bene- far from Blue Island bers, 614, 615, and 618. ficiaries of the expert ministrations of the and its concentration The modern era at South Shore finally shops employees. The most striking differ- of Rock Island and came in 1981 with the purchase of today’s ence has been the adoption of today’s “leg- IC operations. He Bruce Kehe 10 GP38-2s from EMD. The model was al- acy” paint scheme of South Shore maroon chose railroading as a ready becoming one of EMD’s biggest sell- and orange. career after earning a degree in mechanical ers, with 2,222 units manufactured be- engineering from Valparaiso University, just Millenium Station tween 1972 and 1986. Numbered Mr. Kehe’s charges down the road from Michigan City. CHICAGO 2000-2009, the South Shore’s diesels were Responsibility for South Shore’s tidy fleet For Kehe, the fit in Michigan City has bare bones, sans dynamic brakes, and at falls to Chief Mechanical Officer Bruce been good. For one thing, his years at the McCormick Place first retained the same odd-even, east-west Kehe (pronounced “kay”), a veteran of rail- “J” ensured that he became intimately fa- CN (CSS) designation as the GP7s. The new power roading around the Chicago area. Kehe miliar with just about all aspects of Chica- was painted in the new Chessie System yel- came to South Shore four years ago after a go-area railroading, including territory

Hyde Park (57th St.) Clearing Yard MICHIGAN BRC (CSS) L A NS K NIPSCO Michigan City E CN (CSS) Generating Station Carroll Ave. BRC (CSS) Commercial AMTK (CSS&SB offices and shops) M CSS UP Avenue I Hudson Lake C CSS South Bend H NIPSCO Bailly Michigan I Generating Station City Airport G CSS A South Arcelor Bend CN

NS (CSS) NS N IHB Kensington Mittel mill Bendix Beverly Shores NS Hegewisch CSS NS CSS Midwest CN CSS Chicago South Shore & South Bend Steel mill Dune Park CSS electrified lines Hammond INDIANA CSS trackage rights CSX Burns La Porte Other lines (CSS) East Chicago Gary/Chicago AirportGary Metro Center CSS Harbor NS Abandoned Miller CSX IHB Goffs NS BRC Belt Railway of Chicago ILLINOIS NS NS CSX Portage/ CSS CN Canadian National CSX CSX CSX Transportation N CN Ogden Dunes CN IHB Indiana Harbor Belt NS Norfolk Southern Stillwell Not all lines shown 0 Scale 10 miles Kingsbury © 2016 Kalmbach Publishing Co., LOCOMOTIVE: Rick Johnson CN NS In 1949, South Shore purchased three of 20 massive 2-D+D-2 “Little Joes” built by GE for the Soviet Union but never delivered. No. 803 leads a westbound freight over the Penn- Wabash bridge in Gary. Lou Gerard

updated with metal siding in recent de- cades, inside the five-track shop is the same brick structure that cared for all those stee- ple-cabs and Little Joes. The catenary has been removed, but the facility retains the neat-as-a-pin ambience of the old CSS&SB. The South Shore Freight roster has been stable for more than 30 years, but it’s not stagnant. The GP38-2s have required the usual overhauls, including new power as- semblies, and now are slowly receiving up- Dressed in factory-applied yellow and blue, Nos. 2004 and 2001 lead coal grades at Mid-America Car in Kansas City. empties on the Ideal Section at Wagner Siding in July 1985. Lou Gerard “We’re pumping some dollars into these units, all above the walkway, to try to get shared with South Shore. For another, he fied as carmen and are members of the another five to 10 years out of them,” Kehe likes the family feel of his current employer. Transportation Communications Interna- explains. The work at Mid-America in- In some cases, literally: his department in- tional Union, or TCU, which incorporates cludes installing rooftop air-conditioners cludes a father-son team, the elder of which the old Brotherhood of Railway Carmen. and new Wi-Tronix remote monitoring has 30 years on the railroad. “It’s a great The union at South Shore is part of the rail- equipment to provide continuous data on group of guys here,” Kehe says. “I would road’s traction legacy. fuel consumption, health status of key sys- have loved to spend my entire career here.” tems, even operator performance. Although he inherited a solid fleet of lo- Sticking with what works With the vagaries of traffic as well as the comotives, good facilities, and a dedicated As on any successful short line, versatil- need to cycle units through Kansas City, the workforce, Kehe found plenty to do when ity is essential. Members of Kehe’s team South Shore has seen fit to lease a pair of he arrived. His first order of business was have to be qualified to work on more than diesels in recent years, adding a new dimen- to create an up-to-date department data- just the diesel fleet: they also do all re- sion of blue and white to the usual orange- base. Previous administrations had kept quired freight-car repairs, building upkeep, and-maroon landscape. Currently on the good records, but they were all on paper, and other equipment maintenance. On property are two GP38-2s, one leased from filed away in cabinets and stuffed in note- Monday an employee might be fixing a CIT/Capital Finance (CEFX) and the other books. That wouldn’t do. door on a boxcar. On Tuesday, he’s repair- from the GATX Corp. locomotive subsid- Kehe had already created an Excel- ing a traction motor. “We have a good mix iary GMTX, both to be returned once all based database at EJ&E, so he simply re- of people,” Kehe says. “Some are older em- the work at Mid-America Car is completed. freshed what he had been doing before. He ployees who’ve been around awhile, some It’s not all up to the home road EMDs to plowed through several years of paper doc- are about 10 years into it, and we have four keep freight moving on South Shore. The umenting South Shore’s mechanical history fairly new guys.” railroad also hosts large UP and CSX six- before creating his system for keeping track Home for the GP38-2s is the main shop motor power running interline on unit coal of overhauls, light repairs, and spare parts. building across from the one-story 1908 of- trains for the Midwest and Mittal steel Kehe has nine employees in the me- fice building on Carroll Avenue, known in- mills and the power plants. All of South chanical department. All of them are classi- formally around town as “Shops.” Although Shore’s crews get qualified for the bigger

44 LOCOMOTIVE | 2016 South Shore’s first six-axle diesels are two former Iowa Interstate SD38-2s purchased in 2015 and numbered 804 and 805 in sequence after the Little Joes. No. 805 speeds eastward at Porter in June 2016. Greg McDonnell power. UP trains are turned over to South Shore at Goff and CSX trains at Miller. South Shore generally uses its own Geeps to pick up and deliver other coal trains off Canadian National, Norfolk Southern, and Canadian Pacific. Pairs of GP38s will pick up CN trains at Goff, NS trains at Miller, and CP trains at the Belt Railway of Chicago’s Commercial Avenue yard in East Chicago, which South Shore accesses via trackage rights on Metra’s elec- tric line via Kensington. Something new Never assume the South Shore is out of surprises, despite the constancy of its roster and operations. The South Shore recently welcomed a pair of newcomers: a pair of The lineup at Michigan City on a snowy January morning in 2010 includes two SD38-2s purchased in 2015 from Iowa In- pairs of GP38-2s ready to roll South Shore freights. Greg McDonnell terstate. The pair began life in 1978 hauling taconite on Reserve Mining’s railroad in The newcomers have their own back- traction heritage, and they’re not immune Minnesota and later were picked up by story. The first thing anyone notices about to sentimentality, so it was an easy thing to Iowa Interstate. Flush with 17 new GE the SDs is the predominantly black paint pick up the number sequence where the fa- ES44ACs acquired 2008-2015, Iowa Inter- scheme, relatively unchanged from Iowa mous Little Joe electrics left off. And in the state turned the old SDs loose and South Interstate, with new orange panels at each context of Putin’s modern-day Russia, the Shore picked them up for a good price. end and the familiar South Shore herald. nickname for the new diesels was obvious: The SD38s offer the same 2,000 hp as Although different than South Shore’s “Little Vlads.” the GP38-2s, but dig in deeper with those GP38s, Fox says the Iowa Interstate livery Of course, you can’t run a railroad on six motors. The South Shore is a flat, for- was complementary enough to avoid sentimentality, and the South Shore team is giving railroad, but there are some nasty spending money on a complete paint job. as diligent as anyone in the industry at little grades in places such as Miller, on the “I think they look pretty smart, even with watching costs, maintaining the equip- east side of Gary, where the railroad climbs so few changes,” he says. “Plus I always ment, and keeping an eye on the safety re- up and over the CSX main line on a steep, thought it’d be interesting to add six-axle cord. But when you see those shiny orange tight S-curve. In some circumstances, the power to the mix.” diesels with their timeless Insull-era her- new power has allowed the railroad to use What’s more significant, perhaps, are alds easing along 11th Street, mingling with one unit where two formerly were re- the two SD’s numbers: 804 and 805, cars and pedestrians in a tradition that quired. It doesn’t hurt that CMO Bruce changed from Iowa Interstate 154 and 155. goes back to 1908, you can’t help but think Kehe spent so many years at EJ&E: the “J” Fox and other members of South Shore South Shore does everything with an eye had the largest fleet of SD38-2s. management are sensitive to the railroad’s toward the past. At least a little. 2

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